


You're an angel fallen down (Won't you tell us of the clouds)

by stardustachilles



Series: Acosmist (one who believes nothing exists) [2]
Category: Dysprosium
Genre: Alex is 24, Alex is really smart, F/F, First Date, Hiking, Sara is 17, Sara is really cute, leaf fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9590939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustachilles/pseuds/stardustachilles
Summary: Alex and Sara go on their first date.





	

Sara was getting ready for her first date. Well, not her  _ first  _ first date, but her first actual date that didn’t involve staying in and eating ice cream while watching Netflix. Her first date where she went out with someone who wasn’t just a friend and they did things to get to know each other like normal first dates. She couldn’t contain her excitement.

She fussed with her hair one more time, tucking her pants more firmly into her combat boots. (Technically, they weren’t her’s, because she had stolen them from Hayden, who had stolen them from Minerva. The sisterhood of the travelling combat boots.) Her ever-present bomber jacket was resting comfortably on her shoulders, and she was psyching herself up to walk to the park where Alex agreed she would pick her up.

(Because really, she couldn’t let Alex pick her up at her house. She was twenty-four, and Sara was only seventeen. Her parents would flip, and probably ground her for the rest of her life. The ‘meet the parents’ could come later, if this thing even worked out.)

(And to be fair, she hadn’t known how old Alex was when Alex asked her out. Alex probably wouldn’t have asked her out if she had known how young Sara was, because Alex seemed like a girl of principles. But things had already been set in motion, and neither of them were one to back out of something.)

Sara’s phone buzzed from her bed, and she padded over to get it. (She couldn’t even walk loudly in combat boots, god.) The text lit up the screen, from Alex.  _ Surprise. We’re going hiking. _ Sara smiled, unable to suppress it. Alex hadn’t told her what they were doing, claiming it was supposed to be a secret. Sara had accepted, figuring she’d find out eventually.

And now she knew. She grabbed one of the water bottles she kept in her room, and shoved it in a small backpack she grabbed from the top of her closet. She grabbed an extra pair of socks, too, because the last time her family had gone hiking, she’d stepped in a puddle that had completely soaked her boots. And conveniently, she had unintentionally dressed for hiking.

She made sure to stuff some granola bars in the bag, too, before gliding down the stairs and out the door, telling her parents she was going to Hayden’s for the night. The air was chilly, but it wasn’t bad enough that hiking would be intolerable. She counted the sidewalk slabs habitually as she walked to the park. She’d walked this path a million times.

She sat on the swings when she got to the park, excited and nervous all at once. She didn’t really know Alex, but she felt she could trust her nonetheless. She seemed like a good person. She seemed like she’d care. (She seemed like she’d hold Sara down and make her cry, and that was always a plus.)

An engine roared when it slid into the small parking lot, and Sara looked up instinctively. A silver Jeep Wrangler with a black canvas back pulled into a spot. Alex got out, and smiled at Sara. She was wearing a green Army jacket that complemented her broad shoulders, and jeans that were probably meant to be loose, but hugged her muscular thighs wonderfully.

Sara smiled back and got up, walking over. Alex greeted her with a hug. It was warm, and Sara pressed her stomach against Alex’s firm body. Sara tucked her nose into Alex’s shoulder, warm even through the layers she could feel Alex was wearing.

Alex pulled back, and cupped her hands around Sara’s jawline and leaned forward, and kissed Sara on the forehead affectionately. Sara couldn’t resist smiling. Alex was very kind. “Hey,” Alex greeted, pulling back

“Hey,” Sara greeted back, a little breathless. “That was probably the best hug I’ve ever gotten.” She giggled a little and Alex laughed.

“That’s quite the compliment,” Alex said, and grabbed Sara’s hand to walk her around to the other side of the car. “Thank you, I think?”

“Definitely,” Sara confirmed. Alex opened the door of her Jeep for Sara. Sara was about to climb in, but there was a teddy bear holding a little pink heart in the seat. She shot a questioning look back at Alex.

“It’s for you,” Alex smiled.

Sara gasped a little bit, and reached out to grab the bear. It was plush and fuzzy, and the heart was smooth like silk. She hugged it to her chest, and muttered, “You didn’t have to.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Alex agreed, “but I wanted to. You looked like the kind of person who’d appreciate a teddy bear over flowers or something.”

“You were right,” Sara said, grabbing the door handle and climbing in. Alex walked around the back of the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Flowers die too quickly,” Sara continued. “I do have a lot of succulents, though.”

“I used to have succulents,” Alex offered, “but I gave them all to my sister when I moved out. She’s probably the reason they’re still alive.”

Sara laughed, still kind of nervous and excited. Alex backed out of the parking lot smoothly, pulling onto the road. Sara noticed the car was a stick shift, and told herself again that she needed to learn how to drive one of those sometime. A life skill, her mother called it, but Sara wanted to learn more for getaway cars than anything. An unlikely situation, of course, but Sara liked to dream.

Alex drove for maybe twenty minutes west, toward the smaller mountains on the edge of the range. Sara knew there were some good, calmer hiking trails around there. The radio was playing, not too loud but loud enough that Sara didn’t have to try to carry on a conversation. She could hear Alex singing along. Sara was singing along too, but quiet enough that she could hear Alex. Who sounded like she would be really good, if she had been singing a little louder.

Sara didn’t mention it though, because she didn’t want to disturb the tranquility. The buildings got sparser the farther they drove, and it was only twenty minutes, but the hiking trails were a stark difference from the bustling little town of Cumberland, Maryland. Sara watched out the window as the trees whizzed by, orange and yellow in the autumn air.

They went up a slight hill and there was a field with a small hut/lodge type thing with a small copse of trees behind it. Alex parked neatly in front of it, where a couple other cars were parked and there was a big wooden map of the trails. Alex turned off the car and smiled brightly at Sara, and reached back to grab a hiking backpack from the back seat. They got out of the car simultaneously, slamming the car doors.

“C’mon,” Alex said, reaching for Sara’s hand and foregoing the map altogether. They set off down one of the trails to the left of the Jeep, immediately engulfed in a canopy of trees and streams of sunlight. Sara let herself get distracted with looking up, trusting Alex to lead her down the path. She watched a bird fly from tree to tree along with them, and it was probably just a fluke, but Sara waved at the bird and it tweeted back.

Soon they came to a river, wide but rather shallow, relatively. There were a couple people in canoes out on the lake, wrapped in jackets but braving the cold water nevertheless. Sara didn’t mind water, as long as she didn’t have to go in it. Sara paid more attention to where she was going now, because if she wandered three feet to her right, she would fall off of the riverbank.

“This is nice,” she said, and Alex smiled. “I love being outside, especially in this weather. You chose well.” Alex laughed, throwing her head back.

“I’m glad you approve,” she said sarcastically, but it was kind. More honestly, she said, “I’d hoped you’d like it. I always used to come hiking here whenever my family visited, and it’s one of my favorite places in Maryland.”

“‘When your family visited’?” Sara repeated curiously. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from DC,” Alex answered. “My grandparents lived here all their lives, and we’d visit maybe every two months most of my childhood. I moved to Chicago to get my Associate’s Degree, then I moved to DC to get my Bachelor’s. And after that, I moved up here to continue my studies at the Goddard Space Flight Center over in Greenbelt, and I lived there for a year, until I worked out a deal with my boss and moved back out here, and I’m working on my second year of my Masters. I think I like it best out here, though.”

“What deal?” Sara asked, genuinely curious.

“I did a lot of star mapping, the first year of my Master’s, and Greenbelt was only half an hour from Baltimore, so it wasn’t that easy to see the stars. We agreed that I’d move out here and continue my work, and come in once a month to consult and debrief and stuff.”

“That’s so cool,” Sara enthused. She’d always loved the stars. “What exactly are you in school for?” Alex shot her an amused look, like there could be so many more interesting topics that they could be talking about, but she answered anyway.

“I’m studying astrophysics,” she said. They wandered down the left fork in the path, away from the river bank. “That’s my major. Specializing in planetary and theoretical astrophysics. And I’m minoring in astronomy.”

“Holy shit,” Sara said then blushed because she never cursed.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “It’s a lot, but I think it’s fun.”

“I still don’t really know what I’m gonna do,” Sara admitted. “I graduate in the spring, and I basically just applied to all the colleges around so I have options.”

“That’s smart,” Alex complimented. She saw a squirrel run across the path ahead of them, but didn’t say anything. “Do you have any idea of what you’re going to do, or what you want to do? You said you didn’t know what you were going to do. What do you want to do?”

“I,” Sara hesitated, “I want to go to art school. I’ve wanted to go to art school since I was little, but my parents think I should do something more reliable.”

“My parents wanted me to be a politician,” Alex offered. “I said no, and I moved to Chicago so they couldn’t change my mind, and now I love what I do. My point is, parents don’t always know what’s best. If you think you can make it in art school, you should go to art school. I don’t know much about you yet, but get the impression that you’re they type of person who can succeed at anything if you set your mind to it.”

“Aw,” Sara blushed. She hated and loved receiving praise. “That’s so nice. You seem really smart. And really good at giving advice.”

Alex laughed again, but she didn’t blush. Unfair. Sara blushed at everything. “You’re sweet,” she said, but it wasn’t a dismissal. It was an acceptance. God, this girl was incredible.

“You hungry?” Alex asked after a while of comfortable silence. Sara considered, and she hadn’t eaten since much earlier that day, so she nodded. They found a little collection of rocks and sat down.

Alex sat atop a rock and crossed her legs beneath her, and Sara thought it was adorable, but she didn’t say anything. Alex grabbed her backpack and unzipped it, pulling out Tupperware containers with sandwiches and two bottles of lemonade. “Here,” she offered, holding out the sandwiches. “This one’s PB&J and this one’s turkey, lettuce, and mayo. Your choice.”

Sara thanked her and took the PB&J, and when Alex did the same with the lemonade, she took the pink one. She freaking loved pink lemonade. They ate and talked, about their favorites (color, food, TV show, movie, animal, things like that), and Alex grabbed chips from her bag, too. Sara took the cheesy ruffles, and left Alex the potato chips.

They sat there for a while even after they finished, enjoying the slight breeze and the birds chirping. Alex was lying back against the rock she was sitting on, hands behind her head. Sara looked around, looked behind them, and spotted a pile of leaves collected in the half crescent of some rocks. The huge tree above it was almost entirely bare, and Sara got an idea.

She quietly reached behind herself, trying not to alert Alex, and grabbed a handful of leaves. She held them over Alex’s face, smiling, and dropped them on Alex’s face.

Alex sputtered and sat up, pawing leaves off her face. She saw Sara’s smile and smiled too, looking around and quickly finding where Sara got her leaves, and grabbing her own.

She chucked them at Sara, almost ineffectually, because they were leaves, but they still hit their target. Sara screeched and giggled, and grabbed another handful, and suddenly they were covered in leaves with more coming. It wasn’t even a fight, but more of them throwing leaves at each other and usually missing unless they dropped them directly onto each other.

Sara shoved a handful in Alex’s hair, and apparently Alex had had enough, because she tackled Sara onto the soft ground and the leaves with a smile on her face.

All in all, it was a pretty good first date, if Sara had anything to say about it.


End file.
